


Ye Who Enter Here

by Meltha



Category: The Sandman
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-10
Updated: 2011-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-25 21:47:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meltha/pseuds/Meltha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dream visits hell, but hell is often what is within us.  A companion piece to "Abandon All Hope."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ye Who Enter Here

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All characters are created by Neil Gaiman, and no profit is made from this work.

He remembered her. Ever day of every year for countless centuries he remembered her. How could he forget? There had been others before her, and some since as well, but that night swelled within him like a heartbeat of fire.

He remembered the sweetness of her lips when he had at last claimed them as his own, the trembling in her body as she finally gave in to his desires, her desires. His brother-sister must have been laughing loudly enough to echo in distant heavens that night, but he had not cared. His world was in her, the breath that escaped from her lips in panting cries of pleasure, the perfect thighs that parted to grant him access, his own ecstasy at being surrounded by her. In the glow after their lovemaking, he had laid his head between her breasts, shuddering with the enormity of his emotions as though she had been his first woman, and fallen into an exhausted sleep listening to the thrum of her heart.

There had been no holding back. The decree that the Endless should not love mortals had been for a reason, after all. To tie himself to a woman who was bound to die, and to have to mourn her for centuries after Death took her from him, as she must… it was unthinkable. It would crush him, destroy him, and he knew it. He was willing to accept it if he had to, though he would change her fate if he could, if only he could share with her at least the brief lifetime of her kind. A few decades of this bliss he had found with her were enough balm to salve the hurt of it when the time would come, and even if it were not enough, there was now, and it was something. It was everything. He would condemn himself to eternal mourning for her or fight the mazes of Destiny to make her life match his if she would just give him this little time that was hers.

She had thrown herself from the rocks into his sister’s arms that morning.

“Don’t you still love me?” asked the haunted face of her damned shade before him, eyes wide, a glimmer in their depths reflecting that night long ago.

“I still love you, Nada” he said quietly, remembering what it was to be in her arms— remembering that she had been the one to end it. “But I have not yet forgiven you.”

He walked past her, the tumult of hell clamoring to replace her cries in his ears, and if his heart was moved at all, he made no sign.


End file.
